Val Karren: The Deceit of Riches

Nobody at the security station seemed to stir. They seemed to be used to seeing high-speed convoys pull in and out of this complex carrying VIPs, heads of State and ministers of government. There seemed to be no alarm in the security staff.

A door on each car opened simultaneously, and from the protection of the bulletproof steel and glass three men stood and trained their handguns on the guards over the roofs of their cars and demanded that they drop their service weapons. Having been drawn on unsuspectingly the guards put their hands on their heads and followed orders to lay down on the paving stones of the walkway leading to the hospital entrance. With the first guards neutralized and covered, Major Dobrynin stepped out of the passenger’s door of the last car with the collision damage, that was closest to the entrance doors of the facility. Two guards from the other cars followed closely behind him acting as his rearguard. With weapons drawn and plenty of shouting the three men moved in precision to disarm the guards at the metal detector. From that position, a call was heard in English.

“Peter Turner, please come to me now!” Dobrynin shouted, “Quickly!”

Nelya pushed me up and without a word of goodbye or even turning to thank her for the risk she had taken, I walked calmly but quickly to Dobrynin who was covering a guard with his pistol. He motioned for me to walk through the metal detector and outside. As I passed him he followed me, walking backward and very deliberately keeping his weapon trained on the hall guards. As he passed his colleagues, he tapped each on the shoulder and they too started to fall back, guns still trained on the sentries who looked stunned and confused. As the other two guards covered his back again, Dobrynin grabbed me firmly by the left arm and walked me directly to the lead car and put me in the backseat on the passenger’s side. He climbed in on the other side. After a three second delay to wait for all the agents to return to their cars, the troika sped away with the renewed screeching of tires and strained motors as they sped for the main road.

As the troika reached the main boulevard, the Rubleskoye highway, the car Dobyrinin and I were riding in turned right and was followed closely by one of the cars. The third car turned left and accelerated in the opposite direction with great speed. We sped past a highway patrol station of the MVD on the left but they paid us no attention and had no hope of catching this high-performance cavalcade in their standard Lada patrol cars. The patrol officers standing on the side of the road with their striped batons watched helplessly as our cars ripped past them already at one-hundred kilometers per hour. I started searching for a seat belt with my left arm. Dobrynin had to lean across and help me fasten it.

“Good idea!” he said as he reached for his as well.

“Major, can you tell me what is happening, please?” I asked trying to sound as calm as possible.

“I’m very sorry to have to make such a dramatic scene, but I believe that the FSB would soon be at the hospital to try to assassinate you,” he said with more than a twinge of stress in his voice. “I started an unofficial inquiry into the details that you told me about stolen military plans and the FSB’s involvement.”

Dobrynin broke off his story to give instructions to the driver and the car behind him with the radio phone. “Pull in front of us!” he hollered into the radio. On that instruction, a burst of speed could be heard behind us and passing on the left side of the car, an identical Mercedes passed us at two hundred km/h and pulled in front of us. Both cars continued their trajectory at one hundred sixty km/h.

“Do we have to go so fast?” I appealed.

“It’s standard procedure! Anybody else driving this fast to keep up with us will be seen immediately and be assessed as a risk!” Dobrynin replied looking over his shoulder out the back window. He continued his explanation:

“I spoke with only one man, my direct superior about the details you provided yesterday. He listened carefully and then told me to drop it and not take it any further. He told me that the official investigation of the shooting had concluded it was a terrorist action from the Chechen army, and the FSB had been tailing them, and then as you say… all hell broke loose,” he recounted as he watched in three directions at once for any pursuit vehicles.

He spoke into the radiophone again “Vnukovo!” and said to our driver, “American embassy!”.

As the cars neared the interchange of the Kutuzovsky Avenue our driver pulled again in front of our twin escort and sped off under the overpass of the crossing highway, while the other car, now suddenly behind us, took an unexpected right turn to exit and head southwest to the Vnukovo Airport. My head was spinning at the speed with which we were passing other cars and trucks on the road.

“I sent my car to Sheremetyevo Airport and the other car is now heading to the Vvukovo Airport to act as decoys while I deliver you to the American embassy. I can’t trust any Russian security services with your safety,” he said much more calmly just as our car took a hard right as well on the highway exit to change direction and merge with the Kutuzovsky Avenue that would take us directly into central Moscow, and almost to the doorstep of the American embassy. The driver did not temper his speed as he flashed his headlights at slower cars in the far-left lane to move right, with several near misses.

“On my way back from the Tretyakov, after having told my superior officer about your theory, I was chased by two cars from the FSB. They rammed my car and shot at my driver, to no effect. One of them wound up in the Moscow river, right off the ring road bridge, by the Sparrow Hills and the other driver we were able to out manoeuvre and lose. They were obviously alerted by somebody in the FSO, which means that you were not safe in the TsKB.”

Our driver was starting to slow down now that we were approaching the city and had crossed the third ring road. We could see the pearly white Supreme Soviet out the left window slowly passing by across the river. Just behind that was the US embassy. Between us and safety, though, was another ubiquitous bend of the Moscow river that first had to be crossed.

Dobrynin continued, “There are so many criminal elements inside the law enforcement agencies, that entire cases are kept in the shadows. With so many profiteers busy inside the government itself, our central command isn’t even able to assess the risks and threats before state assets are stolen and sold. Russia is short of patriots! If what you have told me is true, Russia will need your help to recover the data that is going to market, but Russia’s traitors that are now in charge of our security services are not willing to help you. Can I count on you to follow through with your contacts at the embassy to try to recover this? Either destroy it or bring it back to us.”

I sat silently listening to this man, risking his career and life to ask me to help him help his country. I was overwhelmed. My look back was fearful and uncertain.

“Do what you can!” Dobrynin replied and from his suit pocket he produced my address book and handed it to me across the backseat. I was stunned.

“How did you find it?” I asked with my jaw slack from surprise!

Before he could answer me, the driver indicated that a car had just fallen in behind us as we crossed the bridge and was keeping pace on the bumper.

“Hold the course, Major?” he asked for confirmation.

“Hold the course, Dima!” the Major replied with confidence in his capable brother in arms as he checked his service weapon and removed the safety. I held my breath and felt my legs go slightly numb.

As the car crossed the bridge we entered into a wide intersection with lanes branching out in multiple directions at varying angles. Our driver, Dimitri, veered slightly left, off of the New Arbat street, ignoring all oncoming traffic and the traffic lights and flung us through a near miss with an oncoming Volvo. He accelerated again through the broad plaza of chaotic cross traffic and with great skill and precision sped up Konyushkovskaya street, right past the huge white building of the Russian parliament on our left again. Without warning or slowing, the car veered hard right and fish-tailed as the driver moved us down a side street just in view of an American flag billowing behind the embassy’s compound wall. Accelerating at full RPMs the driver was determined to out manoeuvre the Volga sedan tailing us in order to give me time to safely enter the embassy. In the blink of an eye, there was a second vehicle that had pulled out in front of us from a side street on the right, blocking the road. I expected our driver to slow down, but instead, he gunned the engine to a frenzied pitch and bore down on his steering wheel. Just before impact, Dmitri pumped his breaks and the released them again. The energy of the accelerating car was thrown into his bumpers and fenders and it nearly flung the blocking car parallel to us and nearly let us pass. I could see the stunned driver and passenger out my window, the driver pinned inside his car by our right fender and passenger door. The only thing between me and him was the safety glass, tinted and bulletproof. The driver’s airbag had deployed and the windshield had become a shattered web from the high-speed impact.